Some exposure to basic programming constructs (such as looping and branching).

An awareness of key business priorities such as revenue, profitability, and financial accounting is desirable.

Familiarity with Microsoft Office applications - particularly Excel.

Course Outline

Module 1: Introduction to Self-Service BI Solutions

Introduces business intelligence (BI) and how to self-serve with BI.

Introduction to business intelligence

Introduction to data analysis

Introduction to data visualization

Overview of self-service BI

Considerations for self-service BI

Microsoft tools for self-service BI

After completing this module, students will be able to:

Describe the trends in BI

Describe the process of data analysis in Power BI.

Use the key visualizations in Power BI.

Describe the rationale for self-service BI.

Describe considerations for self-service BI.

Understand how you can use Microsoft products to implement a BI solution.

Module 2: Introducing Power BI

This module introduces Power BI desktop, and explores the features that enable the rapid creation and publication of sophisticated data visualizations.

Power BI

The Power BI service

After completing this module, students will be able to:

Develop reports using the Power BI Desktop app.

Use report items to create dashboards on the Power BI portal.

Understand the components of the Power BI service including licensing and tenant management.

Module 3: Power BI

At the end of this module students will be able to explain the rationale and advantages of using Power BI.

Using Excel as a data source for Power BI

The Power BI data model

Using databases as a data source for Power BI

The Power BI service

After completing this module, students will be able to:

Describe the data model and know how to optimize data within the model.

Connect to Excel files and import data

Use on-premises and cloud Microsoft SQL Server databases as a data source, along with the R script data connector

Take advantage of the features of the Power BI service by using Q&A to ask questions in natural query language, and create content packs and groups.

Module 4: Shaping and Combining Data

With Power BI desktop you can shape and combine data with powerful, buil-in tools. This module introduces the tools that are available for preparing your data, and transforming it into a form ready for reporting.

Power BI desktop queries

Shaping data

Combining data

After completing this module, students will be able to:

Perform a range of query editing skills in Power BI

Shape data, using formatting and transformations.

Combine data together from tables in your dataset.

Module 5: Modeling data

This module describes how to shape and enhance data.

Relationships

DAX queries

Calculations and measures

After completing this module, students will be able to:

Describe relationships between data tables.

Understand the DAX syntax, and use DAX functions to enhance your dataset.

Create calculated columns, calculated tables and measures.

Module 6: Interactive Data Visualizations

This module describes how to create and manage interactive data visualizations.

Creating Power BI reports

Managing a Power BI solution

After completing this module, students will be able to:

Use Power Bi desktop to create interactive data visualizations.

Manage a power BI solution.

Module 7: Direct Connectivity

This module describes various connectivity options using Power BI.

Cloud data

Connecting to analysis services

After completing this module, students will be able to:

Use Power BI direct connectivity to access data in Azure SQL data warehouse, in addition to big data sources such as Hadoop